Pope Leo XIV's cancer diagnosis raises questions about the future and the very recent past

VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Leo XIV was elected after the pained finale of Pope Francis’ pontificate, there was hope that a younger, healthier pope would be able to guide the Catholic Church for quite some time before age and ailments slowed him. Leo’s lung cancer diagnosis announced Tuesday has thrown a question mark into that scenario and his pontificate. Already, the president of Peru is suggesting Leo’s upcoming Latin America trip may have to be changed.

But Vatican watchers say the 71-year-old’s diagnosis could have other unintended effects — not all of them negative: It could propel Leo to accelerate his own agenda, which to date has been slow and deliberate. It also could galvanize support for him, bolstering his efforts to unify the fractured Catholic Church. And most poignantly for his own ministry, the diagnosis has placed Leo squarely among the “fragile” and “vulnerable” who have emerged as his central focus.

In his preaching, writings and interactions with ordinary faithful, people who are wounded take center stage. “There’s something really beautiful in that even the most powerful person in the church is broken,” said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, associate professor of theology at Fordham University. “He’s been so, so eloquent on how our fragility is also a source of our strength.” The relatively young pope was chosen last year Leo was 69 when he was elected in 2025, relatively young compared with the two popes who immediately preceded him.

Pope Francis was 76 when elected in 2013 and had had part of one lung removed as a young man. Francis battled respiratory and mobility problems throughout his pontificate and died in 2025 after a lengthy hospitalization for double pneumonia. Pope Benedict XVI was 78 when elected in 2005 and retired after eight years because he simply couldn’t go on anymore.

Leo was elected in large part because he was seen as someone who would be around long enough to stabilize and unify the church after Francis’ turbulent papacy, and get the Vatican’s finances, in particular, into order. He brought a youthful vigor to the papacy, bounding up the stairs of St. Peter’s Square and zipping off to the country each week to play tennis and swim.

“It’s a big question mark on the investment that many people have made on this pontificate: an emotional investment, a political investment, even a financial investment,” said Massimo Faggiol…